Here To Vent About Forum Software Again...

[Xarcell]

XenForo is just so much better than any other forum software I've played with over the years, and even the ones I'm playing with now(vanilla ATM)

Some folks at SMF took the software and forked it since they changed their license. Then they posted their screenshot wanting some feedback. I told them they where using to many icons(49 just on a post display). They got all defensive and told me to go fork my own software.

GEEZ....

See, Mike and Kier is cool, because you can leave feedback or constructive criticism and they won't bite your head off. They listen to you and tell you if they agree or disagree, and why.

Although, I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall here searching for the perfect community software. XenForo is the best in my opinion(by god the fastest), but is a long way from being mature enough to manipulate to people's needs, or at least my needs. Not without spending thousands of dollars. If it wasn't for Jaxel and his mod's, I don't think as many people would be using it as there is now.

However, there is no doubt that within a year from now, all web developers will know XenForo's name. It will probably be as popular as wordpress. I just wish other communities was as cool as this one. Not so much ego flying around by the developers and its user's.

I always find myself coming back to for a breath of fresh forum air...

 

[Digital Doctor]

WB Xarcell .. I thought about you a few days ago ... I missed your posts

 

[Peggy]

Take a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath of that fresh forum air. Good to "see" you again.

 

[Panupat]

See, Mike and Kier is cool, because you can leave feedback or constructive criticism and they won't bite your head off. They listen to you and tell you if they agree or disagree, and why.

Oh my great Mike and Kier, ye shalt bite my head off and more if ye please.

 

[Kier]

Pet hate: I do wish people would stop describing XenForo as insufficiently mature. XenForo is entirely mature - it is rock solid, blazingly fast, has an advanced and extensive plugin architecture and is well supported. It is the product that 1.0 was supposed to be. It may not have all the features that some people want, but if so, that would make it feature-light, not immature.

 

[Floris]

If it doesn't have 7 years of features/options/permissions and plugins for it, making it cluttered for the end user and overwhelming for the admins, with an interface that needs a rewrite in order to operate it all .. it's not mature.

The wrong impression leads to wrong assumptions.

Check the core of the engine. You can write a blog for it in a matter of months. You can extend it with features without increasing the queries. You can run it on big-boards as well as small ones. It has a not so much cluttered interface because it thought things through rather then 'lets just display everything we can do'. And the features are all properly working together on the board. It's not like the profile pages are a complete separate script, not using the framework .. Oh, it uses a framework for the most part.

well, etc etc.

For a version 1, it's the most complete version 1 I've ever seen, and seeing how stable it's been since the first beta I've had my hands on, it was the most boring beta testing I've done. If only it wasn't mature, it could have been a more interesting challenge. Now I just use it, and it's working well. Improving per version.

Yes, per version. Because it's still just 1.0 - first build of the product. Of course now, we have maintenance releases and 1.1 around the corner. But it's not IP.Board 3.x or vBulletin 4.x Who has 7+ years of development behind them to get to that mature point. XenForo isn't mature, by definition - it was just born. But it's showing it's as mature as it can get, and 1.1 will be that first step in the market showing it's maturity. F* hell... version 1 - and already a top 5 player. That's an achievement.

Anyway, that's how I see it =D

 

[SilverCircle]

People tend to confuse "feature bloated" with mature often enough. Nothing new.

Small example with text editors.

ed(1) is a very, very mature program. In fact, it might be virtually free of bugs by now, because it has been in development for about 40 years and is certainly a lot more mature than Emacs even though the latter one might have a thousand times more features.

A software is *mature* when all of its features are working as designed. The number of features is totally irrelevant.

 

[Fred Sherman]

Pet hate: I do wish people would stop describing XenForo as insufficiently mature. XenForo is entirely mature - it is rock solid, blazingly fast, has an advanced and extensive plugin architecture and is well supported. It is the product that 1.0 was supposed to be. It may not have all the features that some people want, but if so, that would make it feature-light, not immature.

Amen. Software maturity has a very specific meaning in the industry and, from that standpoint, Xenforo is perhaps the most mature forum software on the market. I have been very impressed with your adherence to best practices, standards, consistent use of internally defined conventions and development methodologies. Immature? Not by a long shot.

 

[erich37]

the most important thing of a software is that it is bug-free and easy to use for the user and the admin as well.

KISS
Keep It Simple and Sexy

 

[Xarcell]

I guess we have different concepts of what mature is Kier. I'm not saying your wrong, in fact your absolutely right and I'll admit that xF is the most stable, clean, bug-free, fastest, properly written software I've ever used.

To me a mature software means software that has been around awhile, does have alot of plugins, and a community that can help novices user's manipulate the software to meet their "unique" needs. There is't many nice looking themes(all look the same) and plenty of user's that use it and can therefore vouch for it. xF has plenty of user's, but nothing compared to other major forum softwares.

And let's face it, it's missing 2 key features. Custom Profile Fields and Sphinx/your custom search engine for handling big boards. I know it's on the way, but it's not here yet. Some people want to see xF in action on some heavy hitting sites to see how it performs, there are very few that do.

* xF will be mature to me when it can be easily manipulated to give each owner it's own unique twists. Right now that's not possible without it costing an arm & leg. It's not your fault, I reckon it's our fault due to lack of coding knowledge. But then if we had the coding knowledge, would we be using xF or making our own?

This is just my own personal experience, so please don't take it to heart. I own and run 8 websites using wordpress, vanilla, smf, boonex, combitnations thereof and others not worth mentioning. I want to use xF for ALL of them. Unfortunately I cannot use xF for ANY of them. I just need minor things to meet my goals, but cannot get that right now with xF. I have a license and don't even know what to do with it. I'm hoping I can do something after 1.1, but not sure.

Just for truth's sake, I will not say xF isn't mature again. Because in truth it is, you guys have plenty of experience and you coding it right the first go around. It's certainly stable, but not everyone can use it without certain add-ons. If you go through and look at some of the sites that installed xF before 1.0, many of them have already switched to IPB or other. Why?

Perhaps it's better to say that xF add-on community isn't mature enough yet? I reckon that sounds just as offensive to them that are there as it does to you. I don't mean nothing by it, just trying to explain how I see software as mature. Maybe it's not the right way, but that's how I see it. I'll work on changing my views ok?

 

[Slavik]

I'm bending Xenforo to meet my needs quite fine without spending thousands

 

[Xarcell]

I'm bending Xenforo to meet my needs quite fine without spending thousands

Good for you. However i cannot say the same. The last price quote for a core feature I needed was $1600. That was for one feature. I need 5-6 more, but was willing to leave without until be became available or affordable. I don't have that kind of money to dish out for one feature, without promise of site success.

 

[grant sarver]

When I first opened my XF adminCP I thought "Oh Cr*p, what have I gotten into"? Didn't have a need for it at the time, kinda got wrapped up in the excitement last year. LOL.

Well, now I'm putting together a site with it and finding the Admin so easy, just love it. The "pages" really fill a gap and are quite easy to use, even for me! For any others out there who are "code-challenged"; I have a local install of CKEditor and I can construct a page, click "source" and copy the HTML and paste it in the HTML box of a "page". Works a treat. You can actually even use the DEMO at the CKEditor site.

 

[Paul B]

You can do the same with a forum post, as I have recommended to others who aren't familiar with CSS and HTML (depending on the content and layout).

 

[grant sarver]

Yeah, but I sure like the toolbox on the complete CKEditor. Tables, rule line, super and sub-script, insert flash, and on and on, way more than you would ever want on a forum submission editor.